Guest Author - Holly Fox

“It’s the Christmas miracle plant! You have to take one to show your family!” I was going to spend my first Christmas in Germany in Paris with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandfather. My boyfriend’s mother was holding out a brown, dried up ball of something. It didn’t look festive and it didn’t look alive. She packed the dead thing in a box with a photocopy of the history of the “Rose of Jericho” and instructions for bringing it back to life.

In Paris, my cousin cast an equally cynical eye on the brown ball of plant material. We found a shallow dish and filled it with warm water. I put the thing in the water and we watched it. Slowly, it actually did start to uncurl. After a few hours it was even dark green. Although the spread out greenness was big step up from the brown ball, it was clear that this plant had made its way into the German Christmas tradition not through its natural beauty but through its Wunder-quality.

Originally from the dry landscapes of Israel, Jordan, and Syria, the Rose of Jericho (Anastatica hierochuntica) dries up, breaks free of its roots, and rolls, spreading its seeds along the way, similarly to that iconic tumbleweed. More along the lines of a sea sponge, the Rose of Jericho will suck up water through its capillary system long after it’s officially dead. The “Rose” shouldn’t sit in water too long, though. After a week it starts getting moldy. This is perhaps the only drawback of the miracle plant.

You can buy the little brown balls at any Christmas market in Germany. All of the stands in Hamburg hand out the same photocopy of the plant’s legend. Supposedly, the rose grew along the banks of the spring that the prophet Elisha miraculously sweetened. The Virgin Mary blessed the eternal plant during the flight from Nazareth to Egypt. These days the rose represents new beginnings, hope, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. One woman selling the plants at a Christmas market told me that the Rose of Jericho is traditionally passed on to the next generation as an important part of one’s inheritance.

This year, I unpacked my Rose of Jericho from its little cardboard box. It had been sitting in back of my closet all year. True to the promises of the salesladies and photocopied history, my rose did uncurl and turn green again. It just goes to show that “a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet,” but that calling a funny-looking plant a rose won’t make it any prettier. I still get a kick out of its transformation though.